As an old guard retailer now (31 years at this), I have a list of rules. It’s about as thick as a core book for Pathfinder, and it’s deep and in detail. But my first rule for staff is a doozy:
Remove Obstacles. Remove any obstacles, issues, problems or challenges that exist between the customer’s wallet and our cash register.
I realize that may seem obvious, even stupid obvious. But you’d be surprised how many obstacles there can be, by accident, design or neglect.
First, I try to make it easy to pay. Let’s say you have cash; we take cash. And to reliably take cash we need an operating Point of Sale system, right? Sure, of course. But what if the power goes out, then what? POS won’t work, drawer won’t even open! Well, we have a non-electrical safe, a second drawer of money and change, a battery-operated calculator, and a written ledger. So, we can write down what we sold, we can calculate the sales tax, and we can make change.
What about other payment methods? Well, of course we have a nice credit card machine: it processes Mastercard, Visa, Discover and American Express as well as debit cards. But again, if the electrical service fails we have a charged-up iPad with a SQUARE swiper.
This is what I consider the silver standard for retailers, but we go a little further. We have staff who can issue a Paypal invoice on the spot in seconds, and verify your payment. We can also take other forms of payment.
So, we make it easy to pay. But, there are other obstacles, right?
We operate two cash registers during peak times. We operate our own eBay store, an Amazon store, a website that does a few sales, a Facebook Live feed that does maybe $10,000 a week (sometimes more). And we do Facebook posts that allow people to see items, call in and order them over the phone, paying shipping and sales tax, easily (or we can send them a Paypal invoice in about 2 minutes). We also do this on Twitter, Craigslist, Backpage, Facebook Groups, Topix and many other social media sites - we actually have a dedicated, 20 hours a week Social Media Director. So, we do sales promotions. Lots of them.
What is another obstacle -- customer awareness? People knowing you exist…? Well, sure - so we do a lot of promotions, marketing, advertising and outreach. Those words are not interchangeable, though I have met a lot of people, retailers, who think they are all the same thing.
Promotions: Usually on social media making note of what we do, when we do it. Not tied to sales or product promotions, just posts, usually paid posts, promoting our events, hours, what we buy - bringing the store into people’s minds. We do a lot of short video feeds that can be put on social media, even on Twitch and Vine, and have our own YouTube channel. This week alone our Facebook posts have reached 159,923 people. That just boggles my mind!
Marketing: We view this as something we do by being part of the community, and active IN that community. We give to and promote different charities (usually by donating product to sell in silent auctions): churches, scouting groups, youth groups, community support groups, museums and libraries as a way, again, of making people aware we exist and that we are connected to their community. All products we give away have our stickers on them.
Advertising: Games and Comics advertises in publications, on cable TV, radio and in newspapers. I spend about 2% of gross sales on advertising - this is our main method of new customer acquisition.
Outreach: Doing events such as the local comic con (done at the local county library), attending or joining organizations like the local chamber of commerce, hosting a chess club, that sort of thing. Also, putting games and books into local coffee houses and libraries for FREE with our stickers on and in the boxes.
Now, you may be thinking that takes a lot of labor. And it does.
And you may feel you own too small of a shop, maybe in too small of a town, to accomplish this - and you don’t. My store is in a town of 8,000 people. And, we do between $75K and $125K in sales per month.
You can too. But, it doesn’t fall out of the sky in your lap, it takes a lot of hard work, good staff, and a good plan. Diversity of product, promotions, advertising, marketing, outreach, community involvement. It is all work. It took me more than 29 years to figure it out, but I am always up for sharing the methodology of my success with new or struggling game or comic shop owners, if you want my advice.
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.
